Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, April 12, 2016

LBJsurgscares5

  • The hospitalized Wise County blogging lawyer posted a brief update on his status and even included a lovely lady of the day picture. Even though he won’t be updating every morning, that’s enough reason for me to stop posting my version of the lovely lady of the day.
  • I thought some of the dialog in the regulatory proceeding at the beginning of ‘Better Call Saul’ was a bit forced, but it still served up as great entertainment.
  • I mentioned my pastor was dedicating a couple of sermons about having a Christ-centered insight to elections. As I’ve stated before, he in no way endorsed any candidate or party. He did tell us that even though he prefers for a candidate to be a Christian, it’s not an absolute. Furthermore, he used an example that I often use, when my toilet breaks down, it doesn’t matter if the plumber is a Christian or not (though it would be nice), I just wanted my toilet fixed. I’m sure some folks think that is too simplistic of an example, but I think you get the overall point. He then lightly commented on the good and bad of having a Christian business directory. And in fairness to my pastor, I do an injustice summarizing these two things he stated when his sermon had a lot of breadth and depth. If you are interested, you can listen to the April 3 and April 10 sermons here.
  • If given the choice to see a dog hit in the face with a pipe wrench, I would rather not see such a thing. Ever. However, while browsing my Twitter feed yesterday, the Dallas Morning News embedded a GIF of said incident in this tweet. There was no need for them to embed such a horrible thing in a tweet, at least give the reader an option of viewing such a graphic indicate.
  • NY Times – Indiana State Trooper Is Fired for Proselytizing During Traffic Stops
  • Gizmodo – That Emoji Does Not Mean What You Think It Means
  • Buzzfeed – A Woman Stole A Ring From A Grandmother’s Open Casket in Odessa, TX
  • GIF for the ladies – Hot dad with works out with cute kids
  • Free food, more details at MyDallasMommy.com:
    • Norma’s Cafe will celebrate National Grilled Cheese Day on Tuesday, April 12 from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m by offering all dine-in guests a free classic grilled cheese sandwich at their Oak Cliff, North Dallas or Frisco locations.
    • Au Bon Pain Cafe Bakery – April 12th from 2PM-5PM – Free Iced Coffee or Iced Tea
    • Ben & Jerry’s – April 12th from 12PM-8PM – Free Cone Day – no purchase required
    • IHOP will have Kids Eat Free Dinners every night from April 11th – May 6th from 4pm-10pm
  • E.B. White – “But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.“
  • Navy’s Futuristic Destroyer is Apparently Too Stealthy
  • WARNING: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TO STOP TYPING IN ALL CAPS
  • I was a big fan of NBC’s ‘The West Wing’ and now there’s a new podcast going through an episode a week which is hosted by former cast member Joshua Malina and film composer Hrishikesh Hirway. The most recent podcast (there has only been a total of three) had Dulé Hill (Charlie) as a guest to talk about his first appearance on the show. A few tidbits:
    • Lily Tomlin’s character, Deborah Fiderer, didn’t appear until the forth season. However, he character was mentioned in the third episode as the person that recommended Charlie to be the president’s assistant.
    • Some of this episode was created from leftover pages from The American President script, another Aaron Sorkin product.
    • Hill was only signed on for four episodes , after he was included as a regular in the first season (1999), he bought a BMW 6 Series. He still drives the car today.
    • The cast would get invited to certain high profile events in select Washington locations. The late John Spencer would always tell his fellow cast mates at these functions, “You wouldn’t get this sort of experience if you were on some cop show.”
    • When Martin Sheen first met Hill, Sheen taught him a handshake Laurence Fishburn taught him on the set of Apocalypse Now. They did the handshake all the time and whenever they reunite.
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Bag of Randomness for Monday, April 11, 2016

elizabethtaylorjhjvchch

  • Until Barry of LiberallyLean.com comes back, I’ll be posting my version of the “Lovely Lady of the Day”.
  • As silly as Barry’s blog is, it is a popular part of Wise County and in its own way, a community service. Many residents start off their day reading his Random Thoughts posts, and when it’s not there, their mojo is thrown off and his readers naturally wonder about his well-being. Some of our shared readers have reached out to me and asked if I know anything, which is kind. However, no matter the state of affairs or what I may or may not know, this is a personal matter of the Green family and I’m going to respect their privacy, it’s their story to tell should they wish to share any of it.
  • I was going through some old stuff and found a battery-powered portable DVD player I gave MomGeeding when she was in the hospital, and it hasn’t been used since. I opened it up and to my amazement, it powered up. Keep in mind, this November is the tenth anniversary of her death. I can’t believe the battery had even a trickle of juice left.
  • I often dog Troy Aikman for being a stuff-shirt, but I have to give him credit for making this area home, embracing it, getting involved and giving back to it.
  • I also dogged the Masters last week but decided to give it a try after researching what would happen if Jordan Spieth won for a second consecutive year. Traditionally, the previous year champion will put the green jacket on the new champion, but who does the jacketing if the same person wins it consecutively? It has only happened three times. Two times, the Augusta Club Chairman did the honors, and the other time, Jack Nicklaus put it on himself. I further learned that the champion is the only one that is allowed to take his jacket off the grounds of Augusta National for the year, but when he returns, it goes back to his locker in the Champions locker room which is on the second floor of the clubhouse.
  • Seriously, I only watched a half hour and it was during Spieth’s meltdown. My younger self would have thought I jinxed him. Even though he was classy in defeat, I did get a kick out of his stare during the jacket ceremony. Those are some beady eyes.
  • Three Golfers Hit A Hole-In-One On The Same Hole At The Masters – There had only been 15 holes-in-one in the history of The Masters until yesterday whe three golfers earned that distinction on number 16.
  • I’m used to seeing panhandlers in Dallas, but for the first time saw them in Frisco, specifically at the Stonebriar Centre main exit. Speaking of malls, here’s a poorly titled Dallas Morning News article – Are these six D-FW malls in rapid decline or poised for reinvention? – I read it because I can literally see one of the malls in the distance from my backyard and was curious about its status, but the article doesn’t really provide any new information about any of the malls. Ridgmar Mall used to be “the mall” for us Mineral Wells folks, but as it declined Hulen started to become the “it mall”.
  • The Peeping Tom neighbor is about to move to California.
  • One segment on ’60 Minutes’ that caught my attention was how China has a 7,000-acre movie studio with every kind of set imaginable and is the largest in the world. They plan on becoming the new Hollywood by hiring a lot of actual Hollywood directors, producers, and actors. China actually only allows 34 foreign films a year, but Hollywood studios get around that by doing a lot of co-producing. Holly Williams was the correspondent, which was a bit of a surprise as I’m used to just seeing her delivering content from a war zone, and more surprisingly, she speaks Chinese and translated during an interview. And yet another surprise about her I learned last night, she grew up in Australia, since she worked for the BBC and Sky News, I thought she was English. Now I’m reminded of that Dumb and Dumber scene.
  • Before the start of the Duck Commander race at the Texas Motor Speedway, Phil Robertson lead the crowd in prayer and asked for a Christian to be put in the White House.
  • GIF – This little boy is going to have trust issues for the rest of his life.
  • Mark Hammil tweeted a playful picture of him and a current Star Wars costar. At first I didin’t get the obvious reference to Luke’s Jedi training.
  • T-Mobile should bring back the T-Mobile girl.
  • Ex-teacher accused of sex with students says one boy’s grades improved
  • We were running a bit late to BoyGeeding’s blastball (tee-ball) game on Saturday, and from the parking lot, I put him on my shoulders to get to the field a bit faster. He said, “Daddy, when I become a dad I’m going to put my son on my shoulders just like you!”  I wanted to stop and hug him right then and there.
  • A friend and loyal reader made a very detailed and informative post on his blog about adding solar panels to his house and all the research and cost that went into it. Two things stuck out: [1.] A company will look at satellite images of your house to see what direction it faces (south is preferred) and get an idea of space available on the roof. [2.] A certain amount of space has to be left between panels in case firefighters need to get on the roof.
  • NY Times – Egypt Gives Saudi Arabia 2 Islands in a Show of Gratitude
  • D Magazine is throwing a Newcomer Happy Hour event for anyone new to the area to welcome them and answer any questions.
  • Marvel vs. DC
Posted in Personal | 2 Comments